not yet

out the door, these things...3 advices...
sue--put magic in the normal (about my writing), go where the fear is, go where you haven't got a clue, your metaphors are easy habits for you...
steve--the only thing that matters at all, that makes any difference at all, is what we think about ourselves...
dad--the bottom line, make sure you have fun...
x

everything else

if i were going to try to tell you everything at once, it would still be just like that, just like how we are talking, except it would be faster, and except you would hear slips of the tongue that lead places where nothing is supposed to fit, but everything would fit there.  if i were to let everything spill, it would fall in so many directions that there wouldn't be enough flowers to cover over the stains that it would leave on the counter.  but i would try.  i would gather flowers and place them on the counter, in the shape of your body, because i want to cover your body in flowers.  if i ran out of metaphors, the world would open up (like a clam) and there would be that nervous moment in between things, in between flowers falling from our mouths (because in this scene you are saying everything at once as well, of course) and that moment that marks the beginning of solid, shivering, naked things, things that fall out of my mouth onto my chin.  and i would tell you a list of all the "i want to's" and it would begin with "turn you inside out" but that would be wrong.  and it would end with something very close to "i want to put my mouth here, and i want to just wait and see what is going to happen after that."  as if i didn't know.  because i don't know.  because this isn't written anywhere just yet.  and there would be some moments where i would stop doing anything and start to say something, something like, "there were these two worlds and one was leaving and one was coming, and you slipped in between the cracks," but before i could get two words out you would interrupt me and tell me to stop.  and i wouldn't understand why.  i wouldn't understand why i was supposed to stop.  because i would think that i was about to say something important.  something that was more important than what you wanted to interrupt me with.  i wouldn't understand.  because i'm really that stupid.  but then you would convince me.  i think you would convince me.  i think you could convince me to stop.  because there's something in you that hasn't happened before, something that tells me that if i could start by telling you everything at once, everything that happens after that will be things that have never happened before, where no one's been before, and there wouldn't be any stencils to show us where to draw, and there wouldn't be any guides to tell us the way, and there wouldn't be anything on earth that could stop it from happening to us.  

here's a whole play

this is the whole thing.  you can't see the ritual bits because they are in the dark.  the moments when you see dark were when we were all getting possessed by spirits of the dead, moving furniture with our minds, and teaching audience members how to naturally release the opiates in your brain so that you hallucinate, and how to attract sexual partners within 13 minutes.  secrets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0UcegRs2M&feature=c4-overview&list=UUrWDq4gTEeHq7XK13kni3BA

In between lines

Not here nor there, in this land of mothers of an old ghost of an ocean, in that place where my fathers were born, already missing this father, and saying goodbye to the father I am, every piece of cloth on the floor of my crowded room is something that a father used to wear, and nothing that any of us need any more. We all get older, but even ghosts change their minds about the right way to be in the world. These clothes are complicated texts.  

This thread is a line to connect me to the place I was, and I have a means of drawing myself back to the images of all the people I used to be.  My favorite company has always been in the company of exiles, even though I have a home I can point to, and even a house where I grew up discovering that the sight of a woman in tattered clothes could drive me mad as a dog on a night with fireworks.  I have traces of first dates somewhere in a drawer that I'm afraid to mark, just in case I die unexpectedly and my loved ones might find it, and scratch their heads and wonder why I kept such strange souvenirs.

A blue earring, a tag from a pair of underwear, a vial of perfume, and a concert ticket that's curved with sweat. Ones I met when I was in between one thing and another.

If I didn't keep these objects close, I would write about them obsessively, trying to capture them as if my pen could be a decent camera.  What I lack in discretion however I make up in metaphor.  This one thing can stand for a whole I can't put into words.  And the most touching things are the ones I don't even try to capture, they move to extreme close up as soon as I think of the perfect first word, and by then I've forgotten the word.

This is no time for new objects to puzzle over, and after sleeping alone for the better part of a year, I can tell this was the right decision.  Between here and there, you're better off traveling light, with very little that can be lost, and nothing that can't be replaced.  Except.  Except.  Except.  

Nearly as I can reckon

Time is short and all of the work that lies in front of me, papers and videos and planning flats, things I like.  And there are obligations to follow through and I like those too because I love the people involved. And I love the heat of this place when it explodes and I don't know why this is not a volcano. It should be a volcano. And on a night like this when my bones are crackling with marrow that flows but will not crack, there are a hundred unfinished stories of desire spread out on my bed, and nothing has to happen to someone who is so in between. 

In the hostel of liminal travelers, we hardly make eye contact, because we don't want anything impossible to start, because those are the very things that brought us here in the first place.  But when we do connect through the eye, and that silver thread (or gold, it might be gilt, I don't remember), we tell ourselves, we tell each other, no, we're doing things different this time, we decided for ourselves this time we would be different.  And there would be no exceptions. 

So I ask myself why, when it's not even midnight, or it's that time of the morning when the cups and papers are piling themselves on us and getting us heavy enough to leave, before it gets any heavier, I ask myself why I am lighting a yellow candle and asking Her to pay special attention to This One, to bring her closer, because I want to find out things before I have to leave.  

And I tell myself it's just because she reminded me of someone I lost, and I'm just visiting another ghost again, and this is nothing different or new, when I really suspect that this is not the same thing at all.  Despite so much glitter turning out to be nothing more than glitter, there's a suspicion this might not be that, just because it's something I don't want right now.  

The night is not too long, and the heat of the day does not make me shiver later in the dark, because I don't sleep, because I am humbled before these tasks at hand, and there is just enough time, but nothing extra.  So I ask myself why I am asking the manager for an extra pillow, an extra towel, and sleep lightly just in case she comes in with the sea monsters when they enter in between the cracks of one day and the next. 

And I keep thinking about these openings in liminal spaces, the pupil that opens wider when you see someone you think you might want to love, and that space between the muscles on the chest, when the sweat of the day is something you wished did not belong to only you.  And I keep saying things to myself, you, you, you, and wonder if you might be listening, listening to this small and futile prayer, the one that says, I'm not ready for something like this, but tonight there is room for you in between all these spaces.

Under the river

I don't think it was my intention (I don't do things without intention) to close the circle (you can't close a circle all the way something always slips in or out) between that thing (it was a series, or a cycle) and this next thing, this next unknowable thing (you always know some things), but when I walked back in to my empty room, I saw that I was clean and all of that was done and I would miss some of it and I wouldn't remember some of it and that was that.  There was this new thing (there's always a new thing) and I knew it was something that I wanted very much.  That it was something that would happen, something that I wanted to happen very much, but it might not happen in any expected order.  And that it would happen in a way that was like a blip on a radar, with nothing about it getting in the way of these next things, or it would happen in a way that would interrupt everything and turn everything upside down, and either one would be all right, but that wasn't important.  Because what was going to be important already started, that I was at the end of the tunnel and almost out, but I turned my head, and I don't know if its backwards or forwards or if that matters.  These things matter if we are turned sideways and I was sideways, and thinking already about how I would be awake and spending time looking at your pictures and just wondering about all of this (even though it has a very short history). And that was just the distraction I needed to avoid looking at the things that had been laid on the ground in my empty room, and I did not notice that there were spirits flying through the air wondering why I was not praying to the moon, but they don't know it yet, and you don't know it yet, but I am always praying to the moon, only now it's close enough that I can hear her answering back, and she is already saying your name, before I can even open my mouth. 

My big fingers

My eyes are too tired to see anything new, and my heart is a story that I tell to anyone, but it's too far into a different kind of chapter to be playing or hearing any gypsy music, but.  If we find ourselves walking past street names we can't pronounce, and the roaring of the canal is closer than we ever imagined, and you told me the story of your grandparents meeting in France, speaking my first language and second language better than me, I would have no choice but to fall in love with you.

after that new moon

that one right back there, that one that closed those doors, opened these doors, and kept a few doors open because those tracks are still running (and a few doors are kept open that I'm not even aware of)  ((i'm not aware of a lot of things))...there is also this: the wise old(er) man in my head, one who is my father (self) is laying things out, this is where things are right now and so on and so forth, but by the end, he says, very clearly, "but despite what you think these days, that this is all stupid and you are done with things like this, and that you are no longer playing in those games, your role is many things, of course, but it will always be, you will always be playing the role of the one who is chasing after that girl.."  and if it is true, i don't know who it's true about, but it feels true, but it can't be that one, that is definitely done (along with that one and that other one), and there's this, that looks very interesting, but it looks to me like a maybe that will soon enough turn into a no, and i'm not convinced the no is from her at all, and then there is this one right here, especially when she's casting that profile, because that profile is holding my attention long enough to start letting the scene play out in my head, but when the scene plays out it does become stupid, and i'm somewhere wondering what that last text means, and how jealousy is not a cape that looks good on me at all (and no one can pull off a cape right now, no one, not here, and not over there), so i must know something that i don't know, i must be referring to someone down there, someone i haven't met yet, but.  there is this suspicion that all the players are really already right here, that we've already met, that our unresolved relationship is going to be resolved sooner than i think, and long before we are ready for it...as if, as if, three lifetimes ago we were all leapfrogging, in between lifetimes, missing each other by twenty years or so (not that this would stop me from anything, even though you might think it should), and before that, we were missing each other by 60 years or so, entire lifetimes or so, and those were the loneliest lifetimes anyone ever lived ever in the history of everything that is in history, so this time, we're leapfrogging, and missing the beat at the most important moments, but, we have a chance, because we are in time, we are here in time, we are going to resolve this in time, all in good time...

7-8 june 2013

on a new moon like this, about to turn 46 like this, i want to say something to myself like this, something that makes sense, something that will set a tone, or mark a tone, for everything that's about to reset and start over.  but in truth, these days have been too hot, and everything that was magic has been replaced with physics.  alchemy is obvious, and love is ridiculous, same as they were last year at about this same time, and everything we want is already written on our clothes.  no one is hiding anything of interest, and all of our secrets are pouring out of our windows at stop lights.  and just when i'm convinced there's nothing left to conjure, and nothing left to surprise me, things that are already familiar and expected start to multiply themselves, announcing themselves a moment before they fall into the world.  a dog out of the corner of my eye becomes the dog entering the room a moment too late, trying to catch up with its shadow.  that one that got lost two years ago is on the edges of the room, looking to see if there's any room, if they can come back in, and if they do come back, will they be welcomed or even remembered?  this is all exactly how it is supposed to be, and i don't want anything that's left unresolved to come back and come true.  and the ragtime music my grandmother plays starts to cycle up again, and this time it's different, and the ghost of fellini is right outside the door, asking if he can direct the next scene.  in the next scene i won't be chasing ghosts in parking lots, and i won't be puzzling over a message from someone who's less than half my age, and i won't be looking for signs that someone back there still thinks about me.  but i will be caught, i will be struck dumb, i will be tied, i will be thinking i must be too old for something like this.  my bed is a perfect size, and my house will become something else, and there will be a dozen magicians who are not what they claim to be.  there will be too many women smoking on the veranda, failing to puzzle out the mysteries of the next identity, and there will be a hundred projects that fall flat, and ten that fly like owls and peacocks and angry blackbirds.  there will be exes and soon to be exes and someone who will stay.  there will be a thousand new variations that disguise themselves as repetitions.  everyone who should be invited will find their way to my door, and i will turn down a dozen invitations with no regret, and one that will bother me through a long hot season.  and if there are bodies, if there are more bodies, brought into the relentless sun so that the bones can be made clean, there will also be new births, and there will be the beginnings of new threads that always make this place vastly more interesting than it just was.  there will be dog claws and cat teeth and a dead one who i will come to know by name.  there will always be more dead who know our names, and there will always be more young ones who haven't chosen their names yet.  and that beloved one, who always comes back, always with new names, will come back with a hundred names and a hundred faces.  and sometime soon we will all be waking up where no one knows our name yet, who will whisper things into our ears in languages we've never heard before.  and everything that is beautiful will be covered with a layer of salt water, because we will learn how to take these things that fly through our hands and make them holy so that we can know that this year is no harder than the last, that in the land of our fathers, the local spirits have a vested interest in seeing these things continue. 

what is event?

it's when you're sitting somewhere thinking there might be five extra minutes to fall asleep for just five minutes except something happens that gets you up and onto the next thing, and you just can't sit still.  not that you want to, your body has to move because it's a clogged intersection of nerves that are so worn out that they're banding themselves together hoping they might fire together if they stick together, like dogs.  we might be able to get through this night if we just band together like dogs.  and we are dogs, phantom dogs that don't know how vicious the forest can be, but we are starting to get suspicious, and maybe that will help some of us to survive.  it's when you decide that you can do just one more thing, take down that tree branch and then you can wash the dog and then you can finish the floor but the branch comes down on your head because you were too stupid or in too much of a hurry to look at the bigger picture, and see that what you pull down will come down over you.  it's when your head is split open and your tooth has flown out of your mouth and the chain around your ankle is starting to bite, and everyone is using metaphors of war, and you tell yourself this isn't a war, not for you, it doesn't mean you personally, but there's blood certainly and there's pain certainly and it's not enough to stop you from moving on to the next thing, because you have to move on to the next thing.  it's when you think you've accepted the death, and you've been using the word death to let people know you're not going to be sentimental about it, but you realize that you really were longing to hear the sound of the nails on the floor coming to see you, but instead you hear nails on the floor and she's still wandering lost somewhere, not quite home, and not quite spirit enough yet to let you know that things are all right in dreams.  dreams won't cooperate at all, it's too much of the white lightning that's been flashing through these days, white lightning that comes with waves of nausea, and you can't draw the loved ones close enough and you can't keep the noise outside outside enough, so it's dreams of white lightning or ridiculous signs that are too far off to be funny even, they are just strange and point to something that's not meant for you.  and there's always more news, just when you think you might have caught your breath, there's more news, and it keeps pouring in through the cracks, and you just want to curl up on the couch and listen to your dad tell you stories about growing up in milwaukee, or military stations in nome, alaska, or the marches for civil rights that often brought the fbi to your door, you just want that, that voice next to you, and the dog on your feet, and you just want to hold everything in the world and tell the world that the world will be all right, because if you open your arms wide enough, you can hold the world, and the world might tell you the same thing, that it will be all right, but it's not speaking to you except to say that you need to rest, because it's not all right, and you're going to need rest, and you're going to need to eat, and you're going to need to keep your head covered for awhile, and you're going to need to be awake, so you can't drink, even though it might bring the ghost dogs in smiling, you can't drink, because the ghost dogs are coming, and if you are drunk, you won't recognize them, and there's something you need to know that will help you later, but first it might cut you open with white lightning, and this might be just enough to open you so that you can see what is happening, because this is still about seeing, it's all about seeing, and you might think this isn't a love story any more, but you will be wrong, of course, you will be terribly terribly wrong

From inside a joint test.

Then there was that morning when your tooth popped out of your head, the one to match the cat tooth in your pocket plucked fresh from the catskull, and you wonder why you feel so spooky these days. And then your lip ring falls out while you eat and the oggunchain on your ankle falls off in your sock, you who were hooked and later untangled by the iron god and you're still not still enough to say thank you. The only thing anyone sensible could say is that this sea is getting just a little rough.

What's hard to know right now is whether there is a right and a wrong way to do this. I wonder if we talk to the dead because we are afraid of letting go, or. If we are wrong about letting go to begin with, like if we don't have to say a complete goodbye to let each other go on with the next stage, because the next stage is never really a completely next stage, but always carries blood and bone from the one before, and the saliva and the cum from the one after. Except.

The mother of decomposing steps in and she steps in a very precise way. This is the body in the dirt and that's when I start to work. I am Astarte-led to see you here so soon doggam doggone. Maybe you don't need to let go, maybe things getting taken away is letting go enough and maybe this is all it can ever be what it is is all it can ever be.